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Michael considered fate at 10:16   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment

On the heels of the new Yahoo online music subscription service, Barry Ritholz has posted a great bit on how cheap online music stores seemingly illegitimize the huge fines the RIAA tries to impose on your grandmother and young children:

Back in February, we looked at what the actual losses were to the Recording Industry in "The False Mathematics of the RIAA."

It turned out that the claims were greatly exaggerated. Using the concept of substitution, a consumer could replace the free P2P music sourcing by paying Napster $180 per year, or Rhapsody (Real Networks) only $120 per year.

Now Yahoo steps into the fray, and lowers the cost of annual "all-you-can-eat" music consumption to $60 per year. Over the course of a decade, that amounts to $1,800 $1,200 $600.

Kinda makes it hard to argue that losses per P2P user are in the 10s of thousands of dollars annually when $600 per 10 years is what it costs for a comparable substitute.